Making time for culture in a move

Moving is one of the most stressful things you can do in life. In the span of a few weeks or months, one must strike the set of their old life and rebuild a new one from scratch. Before departing, there is often too much to do in too short a time, with competing priorities, logistical headaches, and urgent decisions that must be made with insufficient information. Upon arrival, movers jump out of the frying pan and into the fire, as a new to-do list awaits and they must juggle the demands of local bureaucracy and diving into a new job with the necessity of getting unpacked. And if you bring kids, pets, or relatives along - or if anyone has ability, health, or other challenges that must be managed - it can feel even more complicated.

But it’s not only physically and cognitively fatiguing. Moves can also be fraught emotional and psychological experiences. In the first place, they tend to stir up conflicting, deep-seated feelings, reflections, and inconvenient baggage. This churn occurs amid shifting relationships, dissolving routines, and the replacement of the familiar with the unfamiliar - all which can be deeply disorienting and even alienating. Profound identity issues and resentment can arise, especially if one member of the family has made a sacrifice or is lonely or overwhelmed. Add financial strain to the mix and you have the perfect storm.

This is before you even factor in the learning curve of a local culture and language. If you can’t get your Internet set up until you can read a form in the local language, if the bus schedule changes every day when you prefer predictability, if your smiles are met with frowns, if your boss expects deference when you come from an egalitarian culture, and if your team rewards conformity when you’ve been raised to be an individual, you may struggle to find your footing.

All of this will sound familiar to those who have moved, and it’s a big part of the reason the relocation (or global mobility) industry exists: to assist companies in helping their employees make the rough road as smooth as possible. Yet in the mad dash to get from point A to point B, what is often overlooked is the benefit of cultural training and coaching, which can be the key to figuring out what makes the new country (or region in one’s own country) tick.

There are many reasons for this. First, it’s not a big-ticket item that’s at top-of-mind for job candidates. Most people are most concerned about the physical aspects of their move, like how they are going to ship their worldly possessions from Tulsa to Tokyo. Second, employees may downplay their need for such assistance. If they want to snag the expat gig, they may hesitate to reveal that they aren’t a total expert on the host country. Third, these two factors conspire to turn cultural service into a chip that gets bargained away in exchange for more money for more expensive things, like temporary housing. Fourth, many of the people making decisions about relocation policies within companies have not necessarily relocated or been on a global assignment themselves. They are tasked with promoting coherence, manageability, and cost containment, which are valuable to their organizations but are not the same thing as building a foundation for true assignment success.

All of these factors exert downward pressure on cultural services, but there is one that plays an even bigger part: people who are moving don’t necessarily perceive a need for training and coaching until they arrive. Once they have found an apartment in Singapore, and they know where to go to the grocery store, and their household goods have arrived, and their children are enrolled in school, they start to have more headspace for observing the culture around them. It is often at this point, several weeks into their assignment, when they start to have questions about what they observe, where they become aware about similarities and differences, and when they begin to stew about things that are not working.

In our view, this is the moment when cultural coaching and training is most valuable: when the participant perceives a need and has a bit more time for being present and engaging the material. We also believe that it is almost never too late to begin, because as long as you are working across or within different cultures, you have an opportunity to learn and to put that learning into practice. When the dust settles and you realize a need for assistance, rest assured that we are ready to help!

Copyright 2018, Melissa Hahn. Disclaimer: This post is for general information purposes only. You should not rely on it as a basis for making business, legal or other decisions. Melissa Hahn and Hahn Cultural Consulting are not responsible or liable for any loss or damage that arises from your use of this content.